


Many Greetings

by rivlee



Category: Spartacus Series (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/F, F/M, Law Enforcement, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-15 01:55:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivlee/pseuds/rivlee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's just another typical day with the Capua County Crime lab and all its associated employees. A fusion with the CSI-world. AKA CSI: Spartacus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Many Greetings

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeated.

Swing Shift in the Crime Lab was sort of like neutral territory in the ever present war between Days and Graveyard. Diona Blevins had started on Days when she was a Crime Scene Investigator: Level One, but with promotion came a switch to Graveyard, where she got to hang with all her favorite Lab Rats when they weren’t pulling doubles or just barely awake thanks to unhealthy amounts of coffee. Her promotion to CSI: Level Three saw her switching to Swing. She hated it at first, the odd schedule and having to readjust her life again, but it had its perks. One of them was walking through the doors of the crime lab right now.

“Detective Sloan, to what do we owe your presence?” she asked.

Chadara Sloan had once been a traffic cop, who switched to the crime lab, who then went back to the force when she transferred out of the state. One failed marriage later, she was back with the police department, this time working Vice. It’d been _so_ sad to hear about her marriage’s end, but Rhaskos was a fucking asshole. Diona hoped he never fully recovered from the broken arm another office had given him in self-defense. Rhaskos had been a good cop once, but his way of coping with the unique stressors of the job hadn’t been healthy. Diona had damn near sung _Hallelujah_ when the rumor mill brought word of that marriage’s demise. 

Chadara turned around with a flip of her golden pony-tail and the certainty of a woman who knew exactly where she was and for what reason. “Here to breathe down Crixus’ neck for my Trace results,” she said. She fished a mint out from the basket on Lydon’s reception desk. “He’s already a day behind the deadline I gave him.”

“We have a backlog,” Diona said. She adored Chadara, but fair was fair.

Chadara shrugged. “I have a hot case and Undersheriff approved authority. 

Diona wasn’t even surprised; if Chadara wanted something done, she went right after it. Besides, if the Undersheriff was meddling, that meant she was either bored or something was curious. Diona needed to get on that case. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go bother Crixus the Grouch.”

Chadara slung her arm around Diona’s shoulders in a way that was more casual than professional, but here in the Crime Lab of No Personal Space Boundaries, no one would notice. And Diona sure as hell wasn’t going to complain.

**************************

Auctus Floros had just finished changing out of his street shoes and into his work boots for the night when a DNA-tech hopped up on Diet Coke and Pop Rocks attacked him.

“You’re finally here, and you must entertain me,” Duro Stobel said. “All my machines are running on backlog; new cases have already been handed out because you were late; and Kerza won’t play the Smell Test with me because he’s accused me of huffing.”

“Maybe because the Smell Test is the gateway to a life of huffing,” Auctus said.

“Nope,” Duro argued. “Our lovely lab supervisor agrees with me that it’s an important tool to help criminalists and lab rats alike learn to remember and identify all the combustible substances in and around our area by scent so we don’t go boom again.”

Auctus flinched as he remember the last time the lab went _boom_. He never wanted to see a metal table leg sticking out of Duro’s side again. The fact that Duro hadn’t killed them all in revenge thanks to the collective stupidity of his co-workers, chemicals, and heat sources, spoke volumes about his dedication to his work family. 

“Good plan,” Auctus agreed as he finished tying his laces. “Alright, I’m yours for tonight.”

Duro grinned. “You’re mine _always_.” He frowned then as he checked his watch. “Why _are_ you so late? I know I re-set all of your ten alarms when I had to leave for this Swing Shift bullshit.”

Duro very much had done so, as Auctus watched him from the bed through sleepy eyes, but he’d been unable to go back to sleep without the floppy puppy that was Duro next to him. He’d finally resorted to C-SPAN and slept through the _five_ alarms (which wasn’t excessive, no matter _what_ Duro said. They had enough lost power incidents to both be thankful for the extra measures). Auctus had woken up in a paranoid rush seven minutes before he was supposed to be _at_ work. It was a shitty start to his so-called morning and the sooner Duro was back on Graveyard the better. 

“Couldn’t sleep,” Auctus answered as he stood up. He pressed a quick kiss to Duro’s lips while they were still hidden from prying eyes. “Now, Mr. Wizard, show me what you got.”

“Not at work, honey,” Duro said. He turned with a flourish, the tails of his lab coat purposefully slapping into Auctus’ arms and started to march towards his lab. 

Auctus laughed at himself, both of them really, and followed after him, happily resigned to his guinea pig fate. 

********************

Detective Reginald Castus did, truly and honestly, love his partner Nasir Ansara. He’d been _in love_ for a bit there at the start, until he realized that Nasir had a long-fused short temper that required someone to hold him back, not encourage him. They were like brothers now, but Castus still had days when he wanted to shake all the sense in the world into Nasir. Most of those days ended with him sharing a drink with his fellow detective Thomas Donar, bemoaning their bad luck of obstinate trouble-seeking partners with excessive force complaints in their notes, combined with a deep sense of duty and loyalty to said partners. Homicide and Vice didn’t always get along, but Castus and Donar both had to cross that invisible line for the sake of their own sanity. It didn’t help anything that Castus already knew of Nasir’s next undercover job, and how he was positive it would end in more dead bodies that had nothing to do with the serial killer the department wasn’t admitting to actually tracking.

“You look like shit,” Donar said as he sat next to Castus. A large hand patted his shoulder. “What did Nasir did do this time?”

“Body checked someone through a store-front window,” Castus muttered into his drink. Donar had the pinched look around his eyes that Castus felt mirrored on his own. “What about Agron? Did Mr. By-the-Book-Unless-I’m-Angry have a temper tantrum?”

Donar nodded. “We need to replace the whole back bumper of our car. He decided to forcibly back a suspect’s vehicle into an actual brick wall.” 

Castus waved to get the bartender’s attention. “We need two more here,” he gestured to shots of whiskey. 

Donar’s phone rang then. He cursed out loud as he pulled it out. “Looks like you’ll have to have those both on me. Caught a case, it seems, even if my partner is still being torn a new one by Batiatus.” 

Castus winced in sympathy. Lucretia Batiatus was not known for her kind punishments. His phone beeped with an alert. He pulled it up and saw the text from dispatch. He looked up at Donar. “Aren’t dead bodies your thing?”

“Must be something for you Vice kids out there. Why would they call you if it would possibly break your cover?” 

Castus sighed and put down the money for their tab when the shots arrived. He passed one to Donar and clicked their glasses. “By the grace of god go I,” he said before he swallowed down the burn.

*****************************

Barca Guerrero took a deep breath as he pulled into his parking space. He’d just finished his first shift since coming back from suspension. Pietros would _kill_ him if he was ever caught gambling on a case again. Barca had been treated like a fresh-faced rookie the whole night. He’d caught some of the worst cases, was leant out to the Medical Examiner Office’s to help recover and lay-out a meat puzzle of a body, and had to dig through four dumpsters. He’d been the last out the door, having to deal with the snide comments from all the assholes on Days, as he finally got out of there. Barca knew he could’ve lost his job, so he was determined to bear it all with the stoicism Pietros ordered him to put out, but it was fucking difficult when he knew Pietros would already be dead asleep in their bed. 

Barca grabbed his bag containing _two_ sets of clothes that would need to be washed five times to get the stench out. He was on his third outfit in less than twenty-four hours and he’d had to throw out one pair of shoes before dawn. His sanity, and his closet, wasn’t going to last for the whole week. He took one more deep breath and slid out of the car. The walk up the apartment building stairs didn’t feel like a death march, but he could swear the vibes of disapproval were wafting through the closed door of their apartment. Barca tried to be as quiet as possible as he snuck inside, but when he realized all the lights were already on, he cursed.

“Yeah, took you fucking long enough,” Pietros crankily said from the breakfast table. He looked dead on his feet surrounded by plates of cold dinner. “You could’ve called, asshole.”

“I love you,” Barca said as he shoved his bag on top of the washer/dryer unit. “You shouldn’t have stayed up.”

“We always have one meal together a day,” Pietros argued. “Don’t fuck with my world view, Barca.” He poked at the plate in front of him. “Your omelet is cold. I wouldn’t suggest eating it, but I was too tried to get off this lovely kitchen counter.”

“You slept on the counter?” Barca asked. He was about to make a noise of disapproval when Pietros’ dark glare silenced him. “Let’s just get to bed.”

“Not until you eat something,” Pietros insisted. “Even if it’s one of your disgusting protein shakes that shouldn’t exist.” 

Barca didn’t bother to hide the fondness and love in his face. It took a lot to get Pietros to the level of comfort, anger, and crankiness, that he’d willingly curse at _anyone_ much less multiple times in a row while voicing his displeasure at the world. Barca was one of the few people who got the privilege. 

“I really do love you,” Barca murmured as he followed Pietros’ orders.

“You smell like dead things,” Pietros retorted as he finally moved and threw a box of cereal at Barca’s head. 

**************************

Naevia Jemisin signed off on her most recent autopsy report and prepared to leave for the day. It was already nine in the morning; she should’ve left hours ago, but the young kid that had wound up on her table looked too much like Pietros for her to leave the task to someone else. It was the fourth body dumped in the area with the same MO, and she had a feeling that once the toxicology results came back, they’d show the same traces of cocaine and prescription drugs in the bloodstream. It was officially a serial now. They had no crime scenes yet, just body dumps, and a vague idea of where all the young men _might_ have been prior to their untimely deaths. 

It made something cold settle in Naevia’s stomach as she thought about all the What-Ifs in life. She reminded herself, again, that none of those young men _were_ Pietros, and that by now her baby brother was at home, safe. She finally shut off the lights of her office and locked the door when she caught a familiar man sprawled out on the breakroom couch.

“Your back will hate you,” she said as she shook Crixus’ awake. 

“Worth it,” Crixus said. He looked tired, but happy, as he smiled up at her. “Ready to go home?”

“You should already _be_ there,” she said.

Crixus shrugged. “Mira needed the truck for something. I didn’t bother to ask, and I don’t want to know. She dropped me off here on the way home. I was already late thanks to the Undersheriff and her demands. Despite what Licinia believes, Trace results don’t magically appear in a half-hour or less.”

Naevia laughed. “Did you tell her you weren’t a food delivery service again?”

Crixus’ smile was enough of an answer. 

Naevia tugged him up and led him out to the parking deck. Things were going to get interesting around here, with the possibility of Federal Agents on the horizon if the serial killer started to cross state lines. When she came in tomorrow she’d begin the long process of contacting other counties and states looking for victims with similar causes and manners of death. She wasn’t going to think about that now though, forcibly reminding herself to separate work from home, as Crixus folded himself into the passenger seat and started to doze with his head against the window. 

*******************

Detective Nasir Ansara was nursing a busted lip and a bruised ego when Castus shoved him on to the bench in front of the Chief’s office. 

“And stay there,” Castus ordered. “I will not bail you out with Laeta again if you get all slap happy on Lucretia’s desk.”

“Yeah, you will,” Nasir said, because he could.

Castus nodded. “Yeah, you fucker, I will, but only because it would make Sibyl sad and piss Chadara off if I didn’t. Be nice.”

“I’m always nice to Lucretia,” he argued. Nasir maybe had a _slight_ attitude problem when it came to bureaucratic bullshit, but he wasn’t _stupid_. 

“To Agron,” Castus clarified.

“Who?” Nasir asked.

Castus gripped his shoulder. “You’ll see, my oh-so-welcoming partner. Watch your ass, Ansara.”

“Isn’t that _your_ job?” Nasir asked. He didn’t bother ducking for the expected slap to the back of his head. He’d earned that one. 

“Remember, be _nice_ ,” Castus said before disappearing into the madness of the bullpen. 

Nasir flipped through a copy of _Highlights_ , delighted to find that the Hidden Picture page hadn’t been ruined yet, and waited for Chief Lucretia Batiatus to stick her authoritative red head out of her office door and order him inside. 

“Agron, I swear to fucking god, I will end your fucking pathetic life right here with a stapler if you don’t make those two goddamned feet work and follow me. I _will_ carry you, you asshole,” a man with a buzz-cut said. He was pulling another man behind him who had a pout for the ages on his face. 

“I don’t do undercover work; that’s for rookies,” the other man said.

Nasir sighed. Of course, the general attractiveness of the stereotypical Frat Boy Officer was always ruined when the mouth opened. “For your fucking information, I’ve been on this force for seven years now,” Nasir said. “So, please, watch your fucking mouth.” 

“Oh, I _like_ him,” buzz-cut said. “Let me guess, you’re Ansara?”

Nasir peered up from his magazine. “Do I know you, friend?”

The man held out his hand. “Not really, we don’t always cross paths, but I know your partner. I’m Donar, I work Homicide, and I’d like to apologize in advance for the bratty child you’re about to get handed.” He shoved the other man down with his his free hand. “Please don’t get him killed; his brother’s handy with explosives.”

Nasir took Donar’s hand and as he cast a suspicious look at the other man. “Let me guess, that’s Agron?”

“You can call me Detective Stobel,” the man said.

“Alright, Agron,” Nasir answered. 

Donar’s face broke into a wide smile. “Oh, this is going to be _glorious_.”


End file.
